UNOFFICIAL COPY AS OF 11/16/1802 REG. SESS.02 RS HB 174/EN
AN ACT relating to environmental protection.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Page 1 of 43
HB017420.100-175ENROLLED
UNOFFICIAL COPY AS OF 11/16/1802 REG. SESS.02 RS HB 174/EN
Section 1. KRS 224.43-010 is amended to read as follows:
(1)It is hereby declared to be the policy of this Commonwealth and the purpose of this chapter to provide for the management of solid waste, including reduction, collection, transportation, and disposal in a manner that will protect the public health and welfare, prevent the spread of disease and creation of nuisances, conserve our natural resources, and enhance the beauty and quality of our environment.
(2)It is the policy of the Commonwealth to limit and reduce the amount of solid waste disposed in municipal solid waste disposal facilities in the Commonwealth through reduction in the amount of waste generated, reuse of solid waste, waste recycling or yard waste composting, and resource recovery, and to encourage a regional approach to solid waste management.
(3)It is the policy of the Commonwealth that municipal solid waste disposal facilities that ceased accepting waste before July 12, 1992, undergo proper closure, characterization, and corrective action.
(4)It is the policy of the Commonwealth that a comprehensive and integrated waste management system to handle solid waste is to be fostered. State policies and funding assistance shall reflect a preference for projects and practices consistent with the policies and goals established by this section and the following[solid waste management practices according to the following priority]:
(a)Education of the citizens of the Commonwealth regarding proper disposal of waste;
(b)Collection and proper disposal of all of solid waste for proper management;
(c)Elimination of illegal dumps throughout the Commonwealth; and
(d)Abatement of litter on state and county rights-of-way[Reduction in the amount of waste generated;
(b)Reuse of solid waste;
(c)Waste recycling or yard waste composting;
(d)Resource recovery through mixed municipal solid waste composting or incineration;
(e)Land disposal in publicly-owned landfills or incineration of solid waste without energy recovery; and
(f)Land disposal in landfills other than publicly-owned landfills].
(5)[(4)]It is the policy of the Commonwealth that existing illegal open dumps be eliminated and that new open dumps be prevented[further the goal of this Commonwealth that the amount by weight of municipal solid waste disposed at municipal solid waste disposal facilities shall be reduced by a minimum of twenty-five percent (25%) by July 1, 1997, as compared to fiscal year 1993 on a statewide per capita basis. However, credit shall be given for reductions achieved prior to 1993 when accurate measurements are available. The reduction goal shall not apply to special wastes as designated by KRS 224.50-760 or industrial solid waste].
(6)The General Assembly finds that counties and waste management districts, when enabled by complete and accurate information relating to the municipal solid waste collection and management practices within the solid waste management area, are in the best position to make plans for municipal solid waste collection services for its citizens. The General Assembly also finds that assistance from the cabinet, combined with state financial incentives, can aid counties and waste management districts with implementing solid waste management plans.
(7)The General Assembly finds that the goal of reducing the amount of solid waste disposed of in municipal solid waste disposal facilities cannot be achieved without first identifying the amount of municipal solid waste generated statewide per capita, including the waste now disposed of in open dumps, and providing incentives for the elimination of existing open dumps and the prevention of new open dumps.
SECTION 2. A NEW SECTION OF SUBCHAPTER 43 OF KRS CHAPTER 224 IS CREATED TO READ AS FOLLOWS:
(1)As used in this section:
(a)"Environmental remediation fee" means a one dollar and seventy-five cents ($1.75) fee paid per ton of waste by generators of waste and collected at transfer stations and waste disposal facilities that is in addition to all other applicable fees and taxes assessed prior to January 1, 2003;
(b)"Transfer station" means a facility permitted by the cabinet where waste is transferred from one (1) vehicle to another for transportation to a municipal solid waste disposal facility; and
(c)"Public road" means any city, county, state, federal, or limited access street, highway, or turnpike, including bridges and bridge approaches.
(2)The environmental remediation fee levied under this section is in addition to all other applicable fees and taxes assessed prior to January 1, 2003. Notwithstanding any law, franchise, or contract to the contrary, the owner or operator of a transfer station or municipal solid waste disposal facility, or the person who collects waste and delivers such waste to a transfer station or municipal solid waste disposal facility may pass through and obtain from the generator any environmental remediation fee required under this section.
(3)Beginning January 1, 2003, an environmental remediation fee of one dollar and seventy-five cents ($1.75) per ton of waste shall be paid by generators of waste to be disposed of at a municipal solid waste disposal facility and collected by waste transfer stations or municipal solid waste disposal facilities in the Commonwealth. No environmental remediation fee shall be collected at a municipal solid waste disposal facility on waste for which the fee has been paid at a transfer station to the disposal facility. The cabinet shall, by administrative regulation, adopt a conversion formula to allow assessment of the fee by transfer stations that do not have scales. For loads of waste weighing less than one (1) ton, the environmental remediation fee shall be one dollar and seventy-five cents ($1.75).
(4)Not later than thirty (30) days following the last day of each calendar quarter, every owner or operator of a transfer station or municipal solid waste disposal facility shall remit to the cabinet the environmental remediation fee collected during the prior quarter, with a report stating the number of tons of waste for which the environmental remediation fee was collected.
SECTION 3. A NEW SECTION OF SUBCHAPTER 43 OF KRS CHAPTER 224 IS CREATED TO READ AS FOLLOWS:
(1)A trust fund known as the Kentucky Pride Fund is hereby established in the State Treasury to receive money collected from environmental remediation fees established in Section 2 of this Act. The fund shall be used to accomplish the purposes established in this section. Any money accruing to the fund in any fiscal year shall not lapse but shall be carried forward to the next fiscal year. The fund may also receive state appropriations, gifts, grants, and federal funds. All interest earned on money in the fund shall be credited to the fund.
(2)The cabinet shall administer the Kentucky Pride Fund as provided by this section and any administrative regulations promulgated pursuant thereto. Money from the fund received by the cabinet shall be distributed as follows:
(a)Five million dollars ($5,000,000) of the money deposited into the fund each year shall be retained by the cabinet, subject to the following conditions:
1.The cabinet may use up to two and one-half million dollars ($2,500,000) of the money deposited into the fund as necessary for direct costs associated with site identification, characterization, and corrective action assessments of solid waste disposal sites and facilities that have ceased accepting waste before July 1, 1992, including former permitted municipal solid waste disposal facilities or abandoned solid waste disposal sites or facilities. The cabinet shall prioritize the sites and facilities based on risks to human health, safety, and the environment, and develop an implementation plan for closure and remediation of those sites and facilities. The cabinet shall present the implementation plan to the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue no later than July 1, 2003. Funds may be utilized to begin design and implementation of proper closure and corrective action for those sites and facilities with unabated pending violations.
2.The cabinet shall suspend until July 2006 enforcement activity regarding landfill closure and remediation obligations against formerly permitted municipal solid waste disposal facilities owned by a city or county that ceased accepting waste prior to July 1, 1992, except as necessary to abate an environmental emergency.
3.The cabinet shall develop for presentation to the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue no later than December 31, 2003, a plan for state assumption of responsibility for closure and remedial obligations of formerly permitted city and county municipal solid waste landfills that ceased accepting waste prior to July 1, 1992, including recommendations on funding such obligations.
4.The cabinet shall develop for presentation to the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue no later than December 31, 2004, a plan for closure and remediation of all identified abandoned solid waste sites and facilities, including recommendations on funding such obligations.
5.Two and one-half million dollars ($2,500,000) per year shall be used to pay debt service on bonds to be sold by the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority in the amount of at least twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000), with all proceeds from the issuance and sale of these bonds to be deposited in the Kentucky Pride Fund established in Section 3 of this Act and utilized for undertaking closure and corrective action at formerly permitted solid waste disposal facilities or abandoned solid waste sites or facilities that ceased accepting waste prior to July 1, 1992, which pose the most significant environmental or human health risk. Moneys not appropriated for the identification and characterization of orphaned or abandoned landfills, or debt service, may be used for the elimination of illegal open dumps, direct costs associated with the closure of orphaned landfills, or additional debt service.
(b)The interest on all moneys deposited into the fund including unused debt services shall be distributed annually in an amount not to exceed one million dollars ($1,000,000) to the Kentucky Environmental Education Council for implementation of the environmental education center component of the Environmental Education Master Plan;
(c)The remaining balance of the funds from the environmental remediation fee established in Section 2 of this Act shall be utilized by the cabinet for the elimination of illegal open dumps in the counties of the Commonwealth, subject to the following provisions:
1.The cabinet shall prioritize expenditures from this fund among those counties with approved solid waste management plans in order to address those illegal open dumps posing the most significant public health and environmental risks;
2.During the first funding year, the cabinet shall use the balance of funds from the environmental remediation fee to reimburse counties semiannually for seventy-five percent (75%) of the costs relating to the cleanup of illegal open dumps it has identified as presenting the most significant public health and environmental risks;
3.After the first funding year, the cabinet shall reimburse counties semiannually for seventy-five percent (75%) of the direct expense of eliminating illegal open dumps providing they:
a.Establish an effective universal municipal solid waste collection service that is available to all county residences and businesses;
b.Employ a solid waste coordinator with enforcement powers;
c.Remain in compliance with an approved solid waste management plan under this chapter;
d.Enter into agreement with the cabinet to eliminate all identified illegal open dumps containing solid waste;
e.Agree to use all legal methods at their disposal to collect delinquent solid wastecollection fees; and
f.Establish a committee to be designated as the clean county committee, composed of representatives from business, schools, agriculture, homemakers, and other concerned citizens, to increase awareness and develop education and enforcement strategies to keep the county free of litter and illegal open dumps.
4.Counties that meet the requirements set out above in subparagraph 3. of this paragraph shall be provided the following incentives and rewards by the cabinet:
a.Extra points when applying for Land and Water Conservation Fund grants, National Recreation Trails Funds grants, and funding from the state-funded Community Rivers and Streams Program; and
b.Priority consideration for funds from the Division of Conservation State Cost Share Program for dumps on farmland and the Waste Tire Trust Fund for tire dumps; and
5.The cabinet may waive the matching requirement of subsection (3) of this section for illegal dump cleanup within a county during any year in which the county demonstrates that it has enacted and enforced an ordinance mandating collection by all households and businesses in a universal collection program.
(d)Two and one-half million dollars ($2,500,000) shall be transferred in each of the fiscal years 2002-03 and 2003-04 and annually thereafter from the Road Fund established in KRS 48.010(13)(g) and two and one-half million dollars ($2,500,000) shall be transferred in each of the fiscal years 2002-03 and 2003-04 and annually thereafter from the Highway Construction Contingency Fund to the Kentucky Pride Fund established in Section 3 of this Act, to be reserved and distributed semiannually for anti-litter control programs with distributions to be made as follows:
1.Thirty-three and one-third percent (33-1/3%) of the money shall be distributed semiannually based on each county’s miles of public roads as a percentage of the total miles of public roads in the Commonwealth at the time of distribution;
2.Thirty-three and one-third percent (33-1/3%) of the money shall be distributed semiannually based on the county’s rural population as a percentage of the total rural population of the Commonwealth at the time of distribution. “Rural population” means the population residing outside a city, town, or urban area with a population of two thousand five hundred (2,500) persons or more;
3.Thirty-three and one-third percent (33-1/3%) of the money shall be distributed semiannually based on the county’s population as a percentage of the total population of the Commonwealth at the time of distribution;
4.Of the moneys apportioned to counties on the basis of miles of public roads and population as provided for in subparagraphs 1. and 3. of this paragraph, the cabinet shall provide to the participating incorporated cities within the jurisdiction of each respective county which, by ordinance or other means, provides municipal solid waste collection service, an amount of funds equal to the ratio of that city's total miles of public roads in the county and the ratio of that city's population to the population of the county, to be used for the purpose of litter cleanup on public roads within city boundaries; and
5.Moneys received by counties and cities pursuant to this subsection shall be used to meet obligations with respect to the litter cleanup of public roads required by the provisions of Section 6 of this Act.
(3)Prior to providing the financial assistance provided under paragraphs (c) and (d) of subsection (2) of this section, the cabinet shall require a county to provide a match of twenty-five percent (25%) of the total amount of the financial assistance to be provided by the cabinet. The match provided by the county may be in-kind.
(4)The cabinet shall be reimbursed for reasonable costs related to the implementation of the provisions of this section, not to exceed seven hundred fifty thousand dollars ($750,000) annually. The cabinet shall report to the General Assembly at its regular session in 2003 regarding costs and expenditures relating to the provisions of this section.
Section 4. KRS 224.43-310 is amended to read as follows:
(1)The Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is designated as the official planning and management agency of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the field of solid waste. The cabinet shall have primary responsibility for coordinating the solid waste planning and management activities of waste management districts, counties, cities, area development districts, and any combination thereof and for the approval of solid waste management facilities. In doing so it shall be the goal of the cabinet to reduce the amount of solid waste disposed in municipal solid waste disposal facilities within the Commonwealth and to encourage regional management of solid waste.
(2)The cabinet shall have the primary responsibility to develop, review, report on, and triennially update a statewide solid waste reduction and management plan. A draft plan shall be prepared and made available for public inspection by December 1, 1991; a proposed final plan shall be submitted to the General Assembly by February 1, 1992; and a final plan shall be submitted to the General Assembly by March 1, 1992. The plan shall be designed to address the following:
(a)Coordination of area plans and provision of support for area planning efforts;
(b)Elimination of existing open dumps and prevention of new open dumps;
(c)Proper closure, characterization, and corrective action for municipal solid waste disposal facilities that ceased accepting waste before July 1, 1992;
(d)Reductions in solid waste disposed in municipal solid waste disposal facilities within the Commonwealth by actively promoting reuse and reduction consistent with the policies and goals established by KRS 224.43-010;
(e)[(c)]Adequate capacity exists for recycling or disposal of solid waste generated within the Commonwealth for[ a] five (5), ten (10), and twenty (20) year planning periods[period];
(f)[(d)]Maintenance of disposal capacity for solid waste generated in the Commonwealth[ is maintained] if the cabinet acts to close a solid waste management facility;
(g)[(e)]Encouragement of regional alternatives for waste reduction and management[ are encouraged] in the planning process;
(h)[(f)]Priority in grants and loans[ is afforded] for projects and practices consistent with the policies and goals established by Section 1 of this Act[regional waste reduction and management alternatives];
(i)[(g)]Minimum standards and procedures for solid waste management plans as[meet minimum standards and procedures] established by the cabinet in administrative regulations;
(j)[(h)]A description of the status of solid waste reduction and management efforts in Kentucky;